


Back To The Hideous Future

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Invader Zim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more things change, the more things stay the same.  Particularly Dib's unfortunately prominent forehead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back To The Hideous Future

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Pearbean, for being just as insane as I am.
> 
> Written for que_sera

 

 

Dib sipped gently at his coffee, savouring the bitterness as it jarred against his taste buds. Outside, humanity wandered blissfully about its business. A small girl licked at her ice cream, her tongue darting outwards in folds to savour its frozen gelatinous goodness. The Jolly Java sign outside the coffee shop that Dib was sat in rotated merrily, the fat mascot joyously screaming "ENGORGE!" in a heavy Teutonic accent with every ninety degree rotation.

All was well.

Dib touched his nose briefly, as if to push up his long absent spectacles. He planned on laser surgery once he had finished college, but for now his contact lenses only itched a little. Adjusting the beret on his head and smoothing down his turtleneck jumper beneath his long coat, he picked up his pencil and began to write on the notepad before him. A single flower wilted gently in the vase at his table.

After a sentence or so he paused to look out of the window once more. Filled with joy at the beauteous sights he saw, he leapt on top of his seat (hitting his head rather painfully on the ceiling) and cried "What a _great_ day to be alive!"

The barista turned to regard him with dead eyes, drool cascading down his chin. Flies buzzed around the otherwise empty coffee shop. Somewhere in the distance, a pig grunted with disdain.

Dib clambered down to his seat, rubbing his head gingerly as he did so. He already knew what he was going to write - he done all the preparatory reading for this paper - but gosh darnit, if the importance of floral imagery in Shakespeare didn't deserve a lot of introspection, _n'est pas_?

Life was good, he thought. Ever since - he paused - _the incident_ , things had just gotten better and better for him. He was a lot taller, for one thing. The rest of his face was now slightly more proportionate to his forehead. Gaz didn't despise him quite so much now - she even generously let him win at video games occasionally, if he bribed her. Even his mother had come back from wherever she had been for so long. All was generally quite hunky dory.

He looked out of the window again to take in the glorious world around him. There were no shadows for unseen horrors from the depths of his mind to lurk in, no Bigfoots skulking unawares - well, not here, anyway - and certainly not any trace left of - 

No. His mind was playing tricks on him. Or his contacts were. He rubbed at his eyeballs and looked. He squirted lens fluid directly into his eyes and looked (it might have helped). He bashed his head against the table a few times in an attempt to re-align his retinas - and looked.

The flower continued to wilt serenely.

The scene outside the window was as it was before. The girl still licked her ice cream. The fat hog above him still engorged. A bus with a caption of "MOOSE" and a large picture of said animal chewing - Dib shuddered - drew across his field of vision before disappearing. On the other side of the road a rotund woman waddled along, an inane grin on her face, behind a tiny old bearded man walking his dog.

His green dog. His green dog skipping on its hind legs and smearing a cupcake all over its face.

 _Them_.

Dib's eyes twitched twice, rattling like his old school teacher had before she had rocket-launched herself to Mars "to be with the mother race" all those years ago. How could this be? After - he paused - _the incident_ , this was impossible!

Dib dropped his pencil and scuttled out the door, shouting back at the imbecilic barista. "I'll try and remember to pay later! The fate of the world depends on me skipping this check!"

The road was clear. He dashed across towards the shrunken figure, still ambling along the sidewalk in no hurry. He had a balloon in one hand.

The dog was now rolling on the paving stones. Dib thought he could hear giggling as he strode closer.

"YOU THERE!" Dib pointed dramatically. "Smelly old man! Turn around and face me in all your geriatric glory!"

The wizened figure stopped. The dog was definitely giggling. "Why hello there, kind and squishy young hu-man." That familiar voice, like a squirrel snorting helium, in the most unconvincing old man impression Dib had ever heard. "Why, the...uh... youth of today! Why, in my day, we had such meats as you would not believe! _So many_ meats!" The old mans hand's twitched emphatically, talons grasping at the air.

"ZIM!" Dib's voice cracked. His contact lenses shattered from the sheer force of the anger of justice that flowed through his eyeballs. Quick as a flash, he whipped a pair of glasses from an unseen pocket in his skinny jeans and put them on.

"DIB!" The old man turned, revealing that familiar pea green skin barely concealed beneath a cheap novelty beard that was clearly beginning to fall apart. One of Zim's fake eyes had fallen loose and swung ridiculously from his lower eyelid, exposing the iridescent purple bug eye beneath.

"GIR!" cried the dog, for it was he. He rushed over to Dib's leg and hugged it, purring as he did so. "We've missed you!" he sobbed, spraying cupcake frosting all over Dib's clothing.

"GIR! Come away from the filthy long-term enemy!" Zim press a button on his wrist. With a tiny metallic cry of "Processing! PROCESSING!" the disguise was gone, and Zim was once more revealed in all his xenomorphic hideousness. Dib searched for any sign of aging or weakness in his foe, but saw no change whatsoever.

He really was _tiny_ , though.

"Aaaaaaw, okay." Gir detached himself from Dib's leg, and whispered "I love you." before rolling back to his master's side.

"Oh, Dib." Zim's eyes glinted in the previously beautiful sunlight. "How I have missed you and your giant forehead. Such a prominent target for lethal weaponry."

"Why are you here? I haven't seen you in the best part of a decade." Dib had regained his composure and was suave, sophisticated, and did indeed have a slightly more proportionate forehead than before, which was even masked by his nifty beret. He would have the upper hand this time.

"Ahahahahahaha!" Zim's laughter went unnoticed by all passers by, masked by the celestial cry of "ENGORGE!" above them. The small girl was now licking a nearby fire hydrant. "I have been waiting, stupid Dib. Waiting and planning. Ever since -" he paused - " _the incident_ , I have been planning... waaaaait a second." Zim stopped mid-rant and looked confused. Gir blinked. "When did you get so tall? And what's that stupid thing on your head? Is it some kind of useless human mind protection device?"

"Zim, I got older. It happens. Just because you can pass yourself off as a ten year old forever doesn't mean we humans can."

Zim still looked confused. The confrontation paused.

"THE INCIDENT!" screamed Gir. He fell over.

"So, let me guess." Dib was going to enjoy this. "You've spent the past ten years holed up in your underground lair plotting about how you're going to destroy me totally and utterly, when you could have probably subjugated the entire world by now. I, meanwhile, have gotten _taller_."

"Lies! Filthy human lies! This cannot be!" Zim shrank back in horror. "How can you have such power! Such elevation!" Dib did not know the full story about the Almighty Tallest - if he had, he probably wouldn't have made his next move. Which might have been for the best, all things considered.

"Taller, yes. And I have not forgotten. I have always been prepared, Zim. Prepared for the day when you or one of your other disgusting alien friends came to finish the job you started. Prepared to stand for all mankind against the encroaching extraterrestrial forces of doom." In a swift motion, Dib reached under his beret and pulled out a home-made portable laser gun, constructed so that he would always be ready. "Now _you_ must be prepared. Prepared for righteous extinction!"

Zim yelped like a little girl. "Gir! Execute evasive action immediately!"

The robot sat up. "Riiiiiiiiiiiiide the piggy, master!" Zim's mysterious backpack extended several mechanical tentacles that pushed him onto Gir's back, and the pair of them rocketed off down the street.

Dib fired at them rapidly, first aiming for accuracy but then wildly, erratically, laughing hysterically as he did so. He did not think to take the time to notice that he had misaligned the sights on the laser when he had built it at the age of ten, nor that the core was overheating, until it exploded in his hand with an almighty blast. The force knocked him off his feet and sent him spiralling into unconsciousness - by which point, Zim and Gir were long gone.

\---

Dib came to some time later. Dusting himself off, he found his beret in a smouldering heap nearby. The small girl from earlier was licking it.

Clambering to his feet slowly, he grabbed his cell from his inside pocket and dialled up Gaz.

"Yo, bro!" Gaz's voice bubbled with happiness. She was obviously out with friends. "What's up!"

"Zim is back!" Wild desperation broke the surface of Dib's voice. "I saw him, he was dressed as an old man, and he had that _dog_ with him, and he's been coming up with some kind of horrible plan to get me for the past ten years! You have to help me track him down!"

Gaz's voice went flat. Deep. Disturbing. "We had a pact, remember? If you ever mention Zim again, _I will end you_." She hung up.

Everywhere he turned, Dib saw Zim. There, in the reflection of a window. There, in the eyes of a child licking a molten beret. In the sky, Zim shone beauteously on the Earth. In a disgusting coffee shop, Zim wilted gently.

Dib let out an inhuman cry and sank to his knees on that perfect day.

In the distance, a pig grunted with disdain. 

And a voice filled with insanity whispered "I love you." 

 


End file.
